The Silent Kill
by MetteGoingDutch
Summary: "This was uploaded just a few minutes ago from the mall in Richmond," Garcia informed the team as they sat around the table. Even without the sound, they could tell people were running and bullets were flying. "Why are we called to a terrorist attack?" Morgan wondered out loud. That was when the team saw a familiar face; Reid. Just seconds before the footage went black. Please R&R!


The Silent Kill

Chapter 1

Kim was always interested by the crazy, loud, busy side of life. She enjoyed being in downtown Richmond, just spending an afternoon sitting on a patio with some friends. Or taking the dog to the park where people seemed to gather, no matter the weather. To Kim, there was something in the movement of a crowd, in the chaos that comes with everyday life. The sound that people made while they just lived was an inspiration for her. A soundtrack to life itself.

However, with the soundtrack came an image. One which she had learned to see and appreciate. The sight of children playing and laughing. A shopping cart banging against one of the shelves. Leaves rustling in the warm summer breeze. Kim had learned to enjoy the view from all aspects. And maybe that was why she sat on the fountain's edge in the center of the mall by herself. Because not many other people would understand her need to watch the world as it was lived around her. Not many people had the patience to sit and just watch for an hour. Once in a while she would sip at her smoothie or snap a picture. She had become quite good at falling form people's view and was rarely noticed when she captured a by passer.

Although not great, her senses had begun to pick up on little things around her, she could feel them in her bones, strong and imprinting in her veins. They were the tiny details she paid attention to. She could tell that the man who passed at that moment was having trouble in his marriage; as he nervously twisted his wedding ring and seemed to weigh the odds of what would happen if he took it off. But there was a more dominant feeling coursing through her body. All she could see and feel was that something unfamiliar was hanging in the atmosphere of the mall. As if the building itself was getting ready for something bad to happen. Kim scanned the crowd again. Her mother had said to meet her back at the fountain at two. It was almost two-thirty already. There was no way they could have missed each other either, as Kim had never even left after getting a smoothie only seconds after her mother disappeared from eyesight.

Only a few minutes past before Kim noticed something was wrong. Suddenly, every head turned and looked down one of the five corridors branching off of the center fountain plaza. It wasn't just the fact that everyone looked; it was the expressions on their faces that alarmed Kim the most. As some kept their eyes on the first hallway, heads turned to the hall almost diagonally across the first with terror running through their features.

Everyone stood frozen. It was eerie silent for a few seconds. Until screams and panicked footsteps filled the air. The entire mall broke out into a mix of helpless pleas and terrified wails. People had their hands on the exits but no door would budge. They began to scramble to different places. Running around as if something horrific had been spotted in the halls surrounding them. But it wasn't what these people had seen; it's what they had heard.

Panic rose within Kim. What would get all these people so mad with fear? Why would someone at one moment walk out of the Apple Store with a new laptop and the next leave it on the ground while they seemed to vanish from sight? Within moments of the initial scare, people appeared from the halls. Some with tears on their faces, some who looked as if they had seen a ghost. Kim could tell these strangers were all communicating. Either through screams or words said through rapid breaths, accompanied by large hand gestures. While she was trying to make sense of it all, Kim got up from where she was sitting. The business woman who came flying around the curve of the fountain slipped and fell on her hands and knees before the teen. On first instanced she seemed to avoid her eyes, as if Kim would punish her if she got up. Kim frantically tried to communicate with the woman. If she had past her earlier in the day, she might have noticed how beautiful she was. But this wasn't the moment. Her movements made the woman look up. As she quickly struggled to her feet, she shook her head. Her eyes screamed non-understanding and a desperate need for an apology. Kim could tell she was trying but there was nothing she could have done. Within moments, she was gone.

Hearts appeared to pound in the chests of every person in the mall. A union of rapid heartbeats as the world crumbled to their feet. Kim could feel it. And she could see it. But this image had no soundtrack. Nothing these days did. And she found herself in the middle of this chaos, not having a clue about why people ran in fear. Of course she could imagine the worst herself. However, her brain would not allow her to do so. Frantic and afraid, she whipped around, hoping for some random stranger to pull her by the arm. For someone to guide her away from the noise she couldn't hear.

Out of nowhere, someone darted beside her and hid behind the concrete barrier the fountain provided them with. She felt the rough pull on her arm to get to his level. Her back smacked against the stone edge. The frown her face had formed into disappeared when she noticed the expression the young man had on his face. He rapidly looked around for a moment, as if making sure the monster had not followed him.

Kim, who was known to lose herself in a world of imagination within seconds, suddenly relaxed. She felt the marble under her fingertips and the sun on her shoulders through the glass ceiling above. As she sat with her back against the fountain, she could let her head lull back and gently rest on the cool barrier. Hearing the soft sound of rushing water and people going about their day in her mind calmed her.

However, the young man beside her made it impossible to fully get lost in her day dream. She decided to try again. She wasn't expecting an answer though. To her surprise he lifted his hands and signed a response to her question. One word: terrorists. Now her heart sank. The pieces fell together. What she hadn't heard were the gunshots down the hall. People ran for cover from terrorists who had unleashed a round of bullets into a peaceful, Saturday afternoon crowd. Exits, being blocked somehow, trapped every soul in the building. In that moment, Kim became part of the chaos as her eyes went wide with sudden fear.

The silence abruptly seemed to be too loud. As if it were trying to drown out the shock and running thoughts in Kim's brain. Only seconds had passed. From the hallway on her right, the one the first shots had come from, a panicked man ran across the open plaza. Because Kim was now on the floor, lying behind the marble for even the slightest cover, she was on the same level as the young guy beside her. And as his eyes followed the running stranger, she could see him sharply blink and duck his head slightly. While the thought occurred that this was a reaction of a person who had heard something very loud, Kim's own eyes fell on the stranger as well. Almost at the exact same time as the thought had stung itself together, the man in front of her stopped dead in his tracks. Shock fell over his pain-shattered face. Blood sprung in tiny droplets from the back of his head. First he fell on his knees, blinking the tears away. Then his lifeless body crashed to the floor completely, as if given up his soul gave his body the weight of all his life's burdens and dreads at once. There wasn't a doubt in her mind that the guy beside her had heard her gasp for thin air. And for the first time in a long time, Kim swore she heard herself gasp as loud as the gunshot itself.


End file.
